Shame Game – Revisited
Today, a section of our upcoming state exams were delivered to the school. As I unpacked the exams and placed them in the safe, my principal and I discussed the power that was held within 250 square inches of bubble wrap. At this day and age, this bubble wrap, not to be unsealed until the day of the exam, held within it the future of our students, the judgement of our school and ability as leaders, and the rankings of some of our teachers. A great performance and it changes the school’s trajectory. A poor performance and the magnitude of the trajectory reverses course. We shook our heads and locked it away, clearly understanding the power of one test.
As I have contemplated, read, and discussed over the last 2 weeks, I have tried to identify the angles of the teacher ranking discussion that I have not considered. I feel it is impossible to discuss all viewpoints, but hope I can discuss some of the key components of the issue from multiple stakeholders’ perspective. It is with this that I continue the dialogue.
A key component of teacher rankings and accountability is the level of transparency available to parents. I fully support parents knowing the performance of a school and which teachers are stronger than others, however, this should be done in a complete manner. To define a teacher’s entire contribution to a group of students’ lives by one day of standardized testing seems a bit extreme. Just like I wish to seek multiple perspectives on this issue, in order to completely tell the tale of a teacher’s contributions, multiple perspectives and aspects must be examined.
This being said, I 100% agree with standardized testing and higher standards for teachers. Parents should not be satisfied with a teacher or a school that is not performing well. We just have to find a way to effectively and efficiently evaluate whether a teacher is performing at a level high enough for students to benefit from their teaching. I get it, standardized tests are easily quantifiable for the public and an overall lack of student gains should be alarming. (Outside of a great parent, there is no greater force in a student’s educational life than a great teacher.) However, this leads to a host of other issues, some of which poor teachers hide behind, others which are legitimate.
A major issue in transparency is the way that teacher performance is communicated. An online or paper ranking does not explain the whole process. When teacher rankings were shown to the administration team, it was done so with very little confidence. Not in the way it was presented but the confidence interval was huge. Therefore, a teacher may have been ranked in the 60th percentile, but due to a limited amount of data used for this ranking, the possible ranking stretched from 35% to 85%. This same teacher, given a few more years worth of test data, could reduce that confidence interval to 45% to 75%. However, none of the confidence interval data could be found on the report released to the public. Therefore, parents who have this teacher in the upcoming school year, will think they have a teacher in the top 40% of all teachers. Little do they know that this same teacher could be close to the bottom third. When we reduce a ranking to one tool and then publish possibly inaccurate data with confidence, we are misinforming the public (the exact opposite of its purpose). Likewise, this information may give some parents a false sense of security and may focus their own evaluation of a teacher on a number rather than a full assessment. In actual practice, what separates teachers in the bottom third and top third is a good deal of skill. Parents need accurate information if they are judging teachers and schools based on this.
Another flaw with the published system is the capping of knowledge. Because a value-added system is utilized, students who score very high one year and very high the next count very little in a teacher ranking. The student understood the information in 4th grade at a high level and the teacher helped them to understand the material in 5th grade at a high level. I’m not saying this is as hard as moving students who struggle, but the student effectively mastered the new grade’s content. Unless we are going to move to an assessment that assesses grade level as opposed to proficiency within the current grade, some of the data used in the value-added equation won’t be accurate. There has to be some recognition of this.
A crucial piece to ensuring top quality teachers are educating our children is recruiting top-notch people into the profession. If a high achieving college student has the potential to join a profession where he may be publicly shamed and earn a wage that would allow him to live a middle-class lifestyle or join a field where he will be able to show his skill, be rewarded for great performance, earn a very competitive wage, and not have his performance published online and in the newspaper, what decision do you think most people will make? The public shaming of teachers will hurt recruitment of top-level candidates into the profession which shapes our nation’s future. If truly strong teachers are not educating our future generations, there is little doubt that students will not receive the education necessary for competitive jobs.
The last component of this debate that I would like to address is the danger in compromising individuals’ morals. With such a strict emphasis on the scores of one standardized test, there is no doubt that certain individuals will ensure that they achieve a certain level of success (and keep their jobs) by all means necessary. When people’s lifestyle, profession, and family life could possibly be on the line, many will go to great lengths in order to ensure their own professional survival. If we continuously publish this data, some individuals will regularly make sure that their students’ scores shine above others. There will always be individuals who are willing to compromise their morals, but if everyone’s livelihood depends on one exam, then there is a good chance that curriculums will be watered down to multiple choice assessments and more teachers will do everything in their power to keep their jobs. As with anything else, people will do what they need to in order to survive and provide for their families. Even though compromising ethics is not the ideal choice, many people will feel as though they have no choice. This leaves the future of American education in an increasingly shaky position.
Teachers need to be held to the highest of standards. However, we must also develop a system where public opinion is not derived from students’ performance on one (mostly multiple choice) exam. If our students are to compete into the 21st century, we must take appropriate measures to ensure high quality instructors are recruited, rewarded, and remain in the classroom. Outside of parents building a foundation from a very early age, there is nothing more important in a student’s education.
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Wow, AJ. You make some great points here. I like that you don’t advocate throwing out the test entirely as some are doing. The problem with many pundits is that they don’t offer alternatives and come across as just haters of every status quo. Certainly much of the status quo of education is broken.
I also wish that administrators had some evaluations – there are some hidden statistics that would tell a lot about a school like “how many of you feel safe in this school” or how about asking teachers “I feel that discipline issues are properly addressed by administrators” or even the ability teachers have to hold students accountable. Without student accountability it is hard to expect teachers to have discipline in their classroom. This is such a complex issue.
I’m recommending through Twitter and my own blog that those looking into edreform read this excellent post. Wow! Great work.
Hi Vicki, just to clarify the author of this post is “Doc” (aka Kevin Dougherty). He is a principal in NYC and has a first hand experience of the situation. I’m making sure he reads your comments and hopefully he’ll respond! It’s always great to hear perspectives of those in the trenches, but I’m enjoying hearing his changed perspective as an Administrator (we taught together for a couple of year before he moved to NYC). Thanks for the shout out and the comment!
Thank you for your comments, Vicki. I 100% agree that it is an extremely complex issue and there needs to be some checks and balances in the evaluation process. I truly believe that parents and students should have a role in evaluating teachers in addition to superiors, peers, and standardized assessments. Each plays an important piece in assessing teacher effectiveness and when this becomes unbalanced in any single direction, there will be issues.
This holds true for administrator evaluations as well. Once all the emphasis is placed on standardized test scores (or any other single measure), other aspects of effective schools get ignored and people cut corners to get a “good grade.” This is nothing different from reading the cliff notes when a high school English student, however, now the consequences are much more severe for many more people.
Thank you for sharing the ideas. Please checkout the first “Shame Game” post if you get a chance as well.